society
13 Mar 2008
A Teetotaller's Plight
Australians need to learn that drinking and having a good time are two separate concepts, writes Ezequiel Trumper
Kevin Rudd's initiative to tackle the alcohol epidemic fills me with some hope. Maybe there is a chance for people like me. For I belong to a very odd category of Australians: the teetotallers. Yes, the truth is that I have never had a drink. I mean ever. You may think this is odd. But it gets worse.Being a teetotaller in alcohol-fuelled Australia is not easy. At functions, parties, and events you are essentially a social outcast. Well, for a start it's often worse than that. People are suspicious of you. It is not just the horrible adage so engrained in many and which says so much about our society: "Don't trust a man who doesn't drink."
It‘s more personal: every time the issue of my non-drinking habit arises, I am asked with a barly disguised accusatorial tone: "So you don't drink anything at all? But really nothing at all?" That remark triggers in me an automatically generated message: "That's right, but I am not a reformed alcoholic. I actually never drank anything. Some people don't like beetroot. I just don't like the taste of alcohol". You can almost hear the sigh of relief. Their consumption is not tempting me, so they can carry on drinking without guilt.
To an outsider, alcohol is everywhere in Australia. Social functions are generally a let down for me. I attend events because I like to converse. However, after an hour or so it is nearly impossible to have a decent conversation with most people. That is why I normally leave social gatherings early. By then, most people have downed their second or third glass of wine and any attempt to engage in meaningful conversation becomes useless. If you doubt this, just go to any function, abstain from drinking for the first two hours, and then try to talk to anyone about anything remotely interesting. You will feel quite lonely.
There is another aspect. If I overstay my welcome, I tend to hear stories from people about topics I really never wanted to know about in the first place. It is actually sad to see people you generally respect behave like fools, or plain drunks. I remember a telling episode when I first arrived at these shores as a young associate in one of the country's best known law firms: I sat down with a group of colleagues at a function. I was sober as usual but my colleagues had been drinking profusely. Within 15 minutes I was staggered to hear the full sexual stories of half of them in a level of detail I would have never dared ask.
Entertaining customers also became a problem later in corporate life. On a few occasions my law partners decided that the best way to court current and prospective clients was to host wine tasting sessions. Just imagine what it must be like for a teetotaller to go through 3 hours of discourse on the merits of many variations of a product you have no interest in. Or to hear complete bores tasting some wine over a business lunch discussing the merits of a particular winery over another in the most excruciating detail.
This experience, however, is not restricted to business exchanges. At a social level, the issue is more serious. Because you don't drink, and everyone around you knows and remembers that, mates and colleagues are unlikely to include in their social outings somebody who doesn't drink. Before migrating here a long time ago, I had never imagined that the main purpose of a social gathering could possibly be the consumption of alcohol. The concept was inconceivable. Binge drinking meant, literally, nothing to me. Alcohol became the most divisive issue for me in my new surroundings. The cultural shock was at first funny, but then it turned out to be a social problem. It was difficult to integrate at many levels because one of people's key sources of entertainment was of no interest to me.
Nothing of what I write here is meant to be trivial. I often wonder whether Australians are actually aware that in many parts of the world their level of alcohol consumption would simply be regarded as socially unacceptable. The spectacles of hordes of people "off their faces" on a Friday night shocks many migrants and tourists who visit us.
While observing mass alcohol consumption at all levels of society, however, my biggest shock was that there was not a single campaign run by any government to quell it. Despite the enormous social cost imposed by alcohol (which is so well documented in terms of health figures, crime rates, domestic abuse and the like which are not covered in this piece) I felt there was nothing which reminded Australians not just about the effects of alcohol but what they were doing to themselves. All I heard during the Howard Years was that "if you drink and drive you are a bloody idiot". However, I always wondered, why there was not a single campaign promoting the obvious: "Just don't drink, for goodness' sake"?
I often get the impression that I am living in a gigantic brewery. For that is at present, whether people like it or not, what we are. Alcohol statistics are dramatic. Consumption is glamourised. To hear, or read, that "after this or that I felt like a drink," is such a common expression that it confirms people have lost sight of the implicit admission behind it.
The recent efforts of the Rudd Government to start tackling adolescent binge drinking should be the tip of the iceberg of a concerted campaign to teach Australians that alcohol and having a good time are two separate concepts altogether. Our young kids don't learn about alcohol from television. They see it at home, so pretending that young generations will avoid the fate of the older ones by simply tackling the former and not the latter is a delusion. The problem is that this may be an extremely unpopular cause to tackle politically, not to mention the lost income in revenue, political donations and sponsorship generated by the Brewery Dollar.
I am sceptical that the campaign, although a very positive step, will be effective. Until we examine, as a society, the reasons why alcohol rules almost every aspect of social life (from sporting events to business functions), in Australia, the damage to ourselves will go on. And I will continue going home early.
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Oh well, I’ve always believed everything in moderation, including moderation.
I gave up drinking twice when I was pregnant with my two daughters. My experience at that time was not as miserable as Ezequiels’. Sure people became a bit more exuberant and relaxed, and some of them did go a bit too far, but most were just fine and I didn’t feel either excluded or bored. In fact, I hardly noticed that they were drinking and I wasn’t. I guess the preggy belly meant no-one challenged me on my glass of water. Indeed, friends of mine who have indulged in the occcasional glass of wine while pregnant are the ones who report disapproving looks and comments.
I do enjoy a good glass of wine though, and the champagne after I gave birth tasted like nectar.
I couldn’t agree more with the main premise of this article that, australians need to learn the difference between alcohol and having a good time. Alcohol is our insurance policy, we get it to make sure we have a good time. I work in a bottle shop and every day i am morally compromised. The regular customers are basically high functioning alcoholics, on the whole they are lovely people who are, for whatever reason, using alcohol as a crutch. This, to a large extent is their choice and I agree with the notion that we have to live and let live. however, how bad will things have to get before we, as a society really start to deal with a problem that most people seem to think is not there.
WoW! how cool to know there is another ‘like me!’…
i unlike the author have had a handful of drinks in my young life of 34yrs - mostly in my youth. But the premise of this article is exactly my thoughts whenever i venture out with my young family & i / we have to endure the stench & obscene views & smells of the after effects of alcohol on the pavement and walls where we choose to venture in our picturesque no.1 tourist destination of australia. I have often felt outcast from people, & the lack of desire to partake in alcoholic adventures has /is the main reasoning behind this.. though i am not sorry all the same, as i too choose to have much more meaningful conversations of life..
In the last twelve months i have taken my young family on 2 separate occasions to a ‘family’ concert.. where it actually turned out to be a free-for-all for alcoholic socialising.. to not have a drink in your hand amongst a miriad of empty vessels around you, left myself yet again in a very small minority..
i find it disgusting that i cant take my children to a ‘family’ event & have them back up the claim that ‘you dont need alcohol to have a good time’ - at least by the way of a sectioned off area for alcoholics…ahem… sorry.. alcohol drinkers..
"Why?" i use to question, well because it is an ever decreasing minority who chooses not to drink -particularly at such events- but the majority are the percentage that are buying the tickets, so the organisers wouldnt make as much profit would they?
I too feel ‘one day’ it may change slightly.. perhaps like smoking in public places etc, but i feel & fear its a long way off yet, & by then can we really undo the damage that will have been done already to society as a whole?????
Australians are a lovely people, but I don’t think we realise how serious our problem with alcohol is. I experienced this first in Cape York in 1979 when the Aboriginal Reserve council I was staying at tried to ban alcohol just for a month after a woman was bashed senseless and then to death after a canteen binge. Under the law, the ban on alcohol applied to all persons, but the minority whites at Edward River decided to keep blithely drinking, beyond the law (aided and abetted by the police), oh, and bribing a few Aboriginal people with alcohol on the way. "What other entertainment do we have?" they asked. Before this, it had never occurred to me that alcohol could be the sole point of any gathering, or that ways to keep oneself amused were so few. As a young man I saw that liquor could be an instrument to cripple, divide and bash a community.
I’ve been fairly temperate in my life, but a while back, after being in the company with people who hit the bottle fairly hard, seven nights a week, I decided to not drink for a while. It’s interesting how part of me wants to explain to people, "oh I don’t have a problem, I’m not an alcoholic," but…hmm, but I feel I might be letting down anyone not drinking for twelve-step reasons. Maybe they could do with someone sharing with the larger group a sense of it being normal not to drink? And yet…the pressure is still there to stand apart, to say I don’t have a problem. Why is that? Is it the whole country that has a problem and doesn’t want anyone to talk about it?
As with indigoInOz (above comment), non-alcohol family events can be a challenge. At a school I was involved with once, an alcohol-free event with a bush band was the subject of much adult discussion because it was felt the fathers wouldn’t come if they couldn’t drink. Alcohol actually matters to some people. It’s something that preoccupies them. It’s the dealmaker, subliminally delivered. An additional point: selling alcohol is an earner. But this time we went without the money. The dads danced instead.
For some reason I can pick a good drop for my partner at the bottleshop - I find a nice label is invariably a good marker of a well cared for wine - but these shops have an unease about them. Of hardness. Of a fake good cheer. Perhaps our need for alcohol is a a dionysian plea for meaning and togetherness.
Back to a small-sized uni recently, studying with many 19 year olds, it was interesting how the students union organised a key social night that was a bus-driven, binge drinking pub crawl, with no invitation or incentive for non- or temperate-drinkers to come along. Pretty excluding. Despite the promise of long night imbibing, the organisers did not alert us to the advantages of temperate drinking, or safe sex. Binge drinking is naturalised in Australian youth culture (although not present in many other cultures’ young people.) It’s what you do, and each year, at a younger age.
Part of Rudd’s problem will be doing anything about our blindness to alcohol. Yet young people from Europe don’t seem to binge drink like our young do. There must be a reason. There must be dynamics to work with. Rudd should look to these factors. In the meantime, I’ll stick to my 2%, and not worry about any RBT van ahead. My last drink was February 2002. But I can name quite a few – and little doubt so can you – who are worse for wear, and for life, because of the misery brought by fermented fluid.
That’s the key isn’t it? You don’t have to drink to have a good time. Unfortunately many Australians including myself, have spent a very long time abusing alcohol whether we are aware of it or not, so we can ‘relax’ and have that good time, because being yourself for an evening doesn’t really quite cut it. That combo of relaxation and the lowering of inhibitions that alcohol produces is a powerful one.
I was at the pub drinking lemonade last week and was asked during the evening - "Don’t you drink?"
What made me feel worse was not the question, that I felt was levelled at me more like an accusation, but that I felt the need to explain that I did, lest I be relegated to social pariah status for the rest of the evening.
I also started to wonder why my companions were beginning to act a bit strangely. Nonsensical conversations abounded, accompanied by annoying behaviour, then I realised that I had to factor in that they were becoming inebriated and I wasn’t, so I gave up trying to have a decent conversation and left.
I think those of us who have made the connection that we have been drinking more as a means to relax and have a good time rather than because we enjoy it, need to keep plugging away and keep strong in the realisation that we are a minority up against a sea of alcoholic self-medicators backed up and encouraged to consume by a powerful industry.
Our collective attitudes to alcohol consumption need to change. A government campaign, plus more teetotallers ‘coming out’ is a good start.
One of the things I enjoy about a glass or two of wine is that it helps me to relax and unwind. Sure, I enjoy the taste too - but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t partly for the pleasant loosening effect as well. Fortunately for me, I don’t like the sensation to be much more than a mild buzz, so tend to stop if it gets much stronger than that.
A glass of wine, or beer is a stress reliever, but so is a piece of cake or a chocolate bar. When we are stretched, stressed and have little time for ourselves, many people comfort themselves with little "treats" like these. Some smoke cigarettes or marihuana or eat a pack of chips in front of the telly. If we want people to be healthier and less reliant on such quick fixes, we need to give them more time and less pressure, but I don’t see much of that heading over the horizon.
I was always told that moderate drinkers live longer than both heavy drinkers and teetotallers. Maybe that is wrong, but if it isn’t, it would seem our approach to alcohol shouldn’t be censorious or disapproving, but more about moderation. I remember an ad by a winemaker from a few years ago that said "There’s one thing a winemaker hates worse than a teetotaller, and that’s a drunk." Maybe that is the approach to take.
Two points, for a start: drinking is not necessarily the same as consuming of alcohol and having a good time is not necessarily the same as getting drunk. If alcohol is the problem - and that does appear to be the case - and we can control the alcohol content of various beverages - which we do already, the simplest (not necessarily easiest) solution is to reduce the allowable alcoholic content of all alcoholic drinks to, say, one quarter of the current level (because of the dilution effect, this would require well over four times the quantity of any particular drink to have the same alcoholic effect).
Producers and retailers would be happy - think of the extra sales - while most drinkers would soon not notice the difference.
There will be those who will try to iron themselves out anyway but most would benefit. In the meantime - because most avowedly non-alcoholic drinks are pretty awful - do as I do and drink a 50/50 mix of low-alcohol beer and soda water; I’ll guarantee that you’ll make yourself sick before you budge the breathalyzer.
Glad to meet a similar minded faculty to my own. Although I can’t confess to never having supped upon the stuff, I have to say, it all smells like meths to me, and drinking it was only ever a terrible social obligation which I want to protect my children from ever feeling any need to fulfill.
Try not to be too skeptical, already the subliminal message of the advertising is creeping through into the rest of the advertising industry!
FACT: the right wing were working through ASIO operatives among the Socialist Alliance, IS type mob, and Trade Unions, and … . (fill in your own blanks), to keep Australian trade unionists and lefties all too drunk to elect the ALP, or stand up for what we know is correct.
This is some thing which we all need to own our fear of. There is a reason that the "rock bottom" which an alcoholic has to touch base at before recovering, is called rock. In Aboriginal culture, if you drink then you make yourself into the sort of strangers whose dreams will form the future landscape from within the rocks. That comprehension is understood also by Americans, from their own native traditions, but is neither lost upon George Bush etc.
By the way, his own family lending company was all tangled up in the loan scams going on in the US and has gone bust! Usually alcohol users need something to fixate hatred on while drying out and he seems the best candidate at present. But that ought be taken as a cautionary note to all politicians rather than a personal slight to any in particular.
Word Sword Sworn
At Hath
That Hat
Inshallah no poetry farce
By Solomon’s Seal will my past
No word not true can last
Stigbaasvik,
You encapsulate how I have felt my whole adult life. I have a drink or two socially, but people have always asked me why I don’t drink, as in properly. Meaning getting drunk because that’s the only way to have a really good time.
It’s ridiculous and hilarious. In my cultural background it’s considered embarrassing and shameful to get so drunk you can’t string a sentence together. And I’m Greek. No one can accuse Greeks of not knowing how to have fun!
Whenever I have tried to raise this issue with my Australian friends, they’re either amused or they get annoyed. They don’t take this problem seriously at all.
I have always maintained that this is not an issue about young people drinking too much, but one about the whole culture and this real obsession with alcohol which most migrant cultures find disgusting.